I played a lot of tennis when I was a kid, up through college. This was
the late '70s to mid '80s.

I started watching modern tennis; I've found a lot of tennis on YouTube
from that era. It's fun to watch older games and see how much the game
has changed.

The first thing I noticed watching Wimbledon was the grass. By the end
of the tournament, the grass has worn considerably over a fortnight's
worth of tennis matches. Now, all of the wear is at the baseline. Back
then, serve and volley was the style, and the court was worn at the net.

Back then?

So many chip shots! Very little topspin. Lots of continental grip
forehands that just look *weird* growing up with western grip,
Borg-esque topspin forehands.

Players arms were different sizes, sometimes quite noticeably - when you
hit a one-handed forehand and backhand, I suppose that would happen.

Frew McMillan and Gene Mayer hit two handed off of both sides. You'd
need to be quick.

Nastase had one hell of a serve.

I watched the 1975 Wimbledon final where Arthur Ashe beat Jimmy Connors,
who was hard to beat - Ashe spent the entire match hitting puffballs to Connors, letting him try to generate the pace and hit errors in the
process.

The rackets! So small! The tennis shorts - also so small! My 15 year old daughter let out an audible "ick" watching Vitas Gerulaitis playing
McEnroe.

No grunting on court.

Different game.

Tennis magazines always came up with dream draws, trying to pit players
from all time against each other to see who'd win. It'd be tough
competing with the speed and player conditioning nowadays. But I'd love
to see a 1968 Stan Smith playing a 1978 Bjorn Borg at Wimbledon. Or,
Borg against Agassi. Becker/Vilas? Nastase/Federer?





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